How Lane Exploits Seawalls During Winter

By Jonathan LePera
Special to BassFan

As fall turns to winter, MLF pro Russ Lane targets seawalls for largemouth, smallmouth and spotted bass on the Coosa River Chain, especially Lake Logan Martin. They offer the perfect cover for bass and once you establish a pattern, you can rotate through high-percentage areas all day.

In the Carolinas, lakes Norman and Wylie offer excellent seawall fishing, as does Lake Conroe in Texas. You might not light the world on fire catching fish cast after cast, but you can bet your best five would stand a chance in any tournament in town that time of year.

“It’s not like you will find a school of fish; you’ll pick off one here and one there," Lane said. "What makes it a big-fish pattern is because they tend to be loners. You try to keep repeating what you found and adjust it."

They're not All Equal

Lane’s ideal seawall is constructed of concrete, as the heat readily transfers to the adjacent water. As crayfish offer a high-protein meal for bass feeding up for winter, they’ll be nestled in and around the rubble scattered around the base of the wall. Overhanging trees increase your odds tremendously since the bugs and birds that drop into the water offer prey for bass set up to ambush their next meal. A main-channel swing that kicks off to the side nearby with some current flowing through, even generated by wind, is icing on the cake.

“If you have some wind, they’ll set up on the very tip of a point and let the bait get pushed to them,” Lane said. “If there isn’t any wind, they’ll cruise up and down the walls looking for bait.”

Lane has structure, ambush points and a food delivery system that he’ll milk-run starting at first light.

Bait congregates around the walls at night and often remains until the following morning. He’ll start off there and return throughout the day as the sun continues to warm the area. The cold nights prompt Lane to target seawalls in areas that had sun on them the previous afternoon and that are protected from the north wind.

Be Efficient

Discipline is key – as is a full tank of boat gas. Milking a spot that isn’t holding any fish is, of course, a waste of time.

“I like to cover a lot of water because I think you really have it precisely narrowed down to where the fish are sitting,” Lane said. “If you don’t get bit in four or five casts, there’s no sense in wasting time. Keep your odds up by covering more water. You want to get that bait as close to the wall as you can. They sit on the rubble piles at the base of those walls.”

Lane frequently fishes seawalls with a SPRO Fat Papa 55 that he’ll parallel-cast when bass are holding deeper off the wall. When they’re up tight against it, he’ll cast at a 45-degree angle. A casting reel with a 6:1 gear ratio spooled with 12-pound Sunline Sniper and paired with a 7-foot Phenix Composite X medium-action rod allows him to crank the bait without working it too fast or feeling like he’s working hard to speed up, as a 5:1 ratio reel might. Chartreuse/blue back or nasty shad are the only colors he needs.

He’ll also mix in a 3/8 or 1/2-ounce Buckeye Lures Double Willow Spinnerbait. When the water is dirty, white blades with a chartreuse/white skirt reign supreme. Adding a 3-inch Big Bite Baits Dean Rojas Cane Thumper increases the action and visibility of his bait, paramount in colored water. Most times, a spinnerbait outfitted with a silver and gold blade and natural skirt pattern will suffice.

Lane rarely employs a trailer hook, believing that if his presentation and retrieve are right, they’ll eat his bait readily. Fish that short-strike are speaking in code that something is off with your bait profile or retrieve.

In the event of a major cold front, expect bass to be hunkered to the bottom. This calls for a slowly retrieved, bigger-bladed spinnerbait that he’ll reel just fast enough to hover above and make contact with the bottom. A heavier 3/4-ounce spinnerbait allows him to precisely control the running depth of his bait. A Big Bite Baits BB Kicker Swimbait rigged on a 1/2-ounce head fished similarly offers the perfect 1-2 punch.

There are those times when it seems like the loners that usually frequent high-percentage areas picked up and left. Lane isn’t so quick to abort his game plan.

“I’ll try to find flatter-type stretches where a cast and a half off the bank and you’re in no more than 5-foot of water. Those fish may have pulled off the base of the walls for whatever reason. The best way to find them is with a lipless crankbait,” Lane says.

He uses an erratically retrieved 1/2-ounce SPRO Aruku Shad lipless crank in chartreuse, gold and natural baitfish colors. On most Southern lakes in late winter, a red rattlebait can shine out. Intermittently reeling the bait slowly, then quickly, often results in a vicious strike halfway back to the boat.

The biggest error that Lane sees anglers committing is that their casts are too far from the wall. Unless you can put your bait within an inch of the target, you are missing out on the best real estate for those monster rogue bass.